The Register from Santa Ana, California • Page 16

Editorial Views, Features SANTA ANA REGISTER, FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 11, 1943 0 Phone 6121 THE SANTA ANA REGISTER Common Ground By R. C. IIOILES ESTABI JSHED 1905 rtibllshpd daily Sunduy) by The Reeliter Publishing Company. Ltd Ana, Cahfortiia. entered Santa Ana post office as second class matter.

TEL. from a m. to 6 call 6121; after 6 m. SihseriDtion, and Aav. Absorbed Times 19S0, Journal.

195S. RATES: In Orange County by Carrier S3 month, f5 10 for 6 months; 20 forone rear Outside Orange County; Si ts) per month; la.00 for months. 112 per year. Single copies 4c. MEMBER AUDIT BUREAU OF CiRCt LATION Before President Roosevelt made his two latest addresses, there "ere reports by Washington reporters who quoted to the effect that the President would announce plans for the appointment of a price control czai.

On the morning of his talks, White House Secretary Stephen Early said to reporters. first off for all those who quoted and predicted the appointment of a czar and an Executive order, the President has a message. Here it is: "1 speak the pass-vord primeval, 1 give the sign of democracy. By God! 1 will accept nothing which all cannot have their counterpart of on the same WALT WHITMAN- ROOSEVELT'S DEMAGOGIC PROPOSALS Roosevelt made two demagogic statements ki his fireside talk aiming at popularity. One was limiting every income to 525,000.

The other was a floor under farm prices after the war. Many people have not thought through the final or end results of limiting incomes to $25,000 a year. Of course. Roosevelt own rewards would not be limited to 525,000 a yeat because he receives in services from the government what would cost two or three times 525,000. He would continue to get not only all these services but, in addition to that, he would be permitted to get the 525.000 after he had paid his taxes.

I would net put himself in the same class he would put private cilizens. Neither does Hitler or Stalin put themselves Question For Future Historians good morning suckers, quote It is our guess that the reporters for whom on sarne. income as their subject. There is no the message was intended will mark down caio- fully the remark. Washington reporters in the main are usually well informed.

Unless there was good reason to believe that a was to be appointed it is not likely That such a would have been so widely by so many reporters. The chances are that, unless the Congress does act by October 1. that a will be appointed. Who will be the then? FIRE PREVENTION WEEK Starting October 4, Fire Prevention Week will be observed as it has each year for more than a generation and never in our history was there such a time when fire prevention was so important to the welfare of the nation. A fire that destroys any of the materials of war is a direct blow to the national war program and in the present type of total it is virtually impossible to discover any basic material that is not vital to the war effort.

W. E. Mallalieu. general manager of the National Board of Fire Underwriters, recently- listed a few of the serious fires that have occurred since Pearl Harbor. In one fire a huge supply of rubber was consumed.

Another destroyed a plant making magnesium powder, a critical war material. Fire destroyed the use of the great liner Normandie and again has cost us a huge transport ship only a week or so ago. In most instances. Mallalieu is reported as saying, the fires could have been prevented, or at least the destruction reduced, if adequate precautions had been taken in time. Here, at least, is a job that all of us can do to assist in the national war effort.

Bo careful, take precautions, learn the fundamentals of fire prevention from your local fire department and have the satisfaction of knowing that if you prevent a fire that you have struck a personal blow at the powers of aggression. ----------------AN INSULT TO AMERICANS By their hesitancy about dealing with critical war problems that may not prove to be popular with the voters, both the administration and Congress are insulting the American people and are exhibiting a lukewarm faith in democracy. Whether it is an insult to the intelligence or to their patriotism remains a question but there can remain no doubt that our in Washington have been wishy-washy when it appeared they had to make a decision that might bring unpleasantness to the people. Whatever the reason, there is no doubt but that week after week positive action is deferred on important problems. What to do about wage stabilization, farm prices, rubber conservation and scores ot other vital questions are being set over until after the November elections.

It is an insult, a slanderous insult, when our selected officials dare not do things necessary to win this war, for fear the voters might punish them at the polls. Washington seems to feel that those who work for a living are so selfish that they wall not do their part to win this war and to preserve the American way of life. Washington seems to believe that the farmers are so selfish that they will not accept the hardships that are necessary to win this war and preserve the American way of life. Washington seems to fear the power, politically, of a few' union bosses, that there is no credit given to the 55,000,000 workers in the nation whose homes and lives are at stake in the war. Such fears are an insult to us all.

Every voter choosing a Congressman this coming election should determine his record and see if he has played the part of a man or a mouse in his decisions. The Nation Press REVOLUTION IF HE TRIES IT (Chicago Tribune) Mr. Roosevelt's message to congress and the radio address which accompanied it can be understood only ui relation to the November election. Mr. Roosevelt has heard from a great many people, including his most ardent admirers in the lickspittle press, of a growing dissatisfaction in the country with his management of the war effort, Tht surprise at Pearl Harbor was followed by the revelation that his administration had tc prepare against the submarine menace.

It had failed also to provide adequate stocks of rubber, tin, and other scarce commodities, or to rush the construction of plants to manufacture synthetic substitutes. The public was told one day to save waste paper and a few weeks later that there was no need for waste paper. It was frightened with the rationing of sugar only to learn that there was no great need for rationing. Everybody who had business to transact in Washington reported confusion of purpose and an overgrown burocracy staffed by people who either know' what it was all about or lacked authority to act with promptness. On top of all these complaints was the growing realization thruout the country' that the administration lacked the courage to resist the demands of the pressure groups to w'hich the New Deal had toadied for a decade.

There was no hesitancy in cracking down on business, but when it came to farmers and organized labor the President was anything but tough. It was from unprecedented wage payments and high farm income that the danger of inflation came, but Mr. Roosevelt would not use his influence in congress to check farm prices and his War Labor board is pursuing a wage raising policy. The President had seen his own party in New universal, impersonal rule with a dictator or under state socialism as there is where true democracy is practiced. Roosevelt does not explain how production would be reduced and, thus, the wages by putting a 525,000 ceiling on income.

Under that plan, if a man put $50,000,000 or $100,000,000 into producing rubber, w'hich we badly need, or producing anything to win the war. the government would say that his profits could be only $25,000. If he lost the whole $50,000,000 or $100,000,000 that ho put in. that would be the own fault. The result would be that nobody would try to do any of these new and difficult things; nobody would run any risks.

We would have only the creative initiative of the bureaucrats at the head of the government. Consequently we would have a great deal less production because of the $25,000 limitation on income than we would have if we permitted men to have rewards on a competitive basis. But Roosevelt never explains how disasterously it would work. But since many people have not thought this through, Roosevelt uses this as a bait to make the workers think it will be to their advantage to take all the rewards above $25,000, no matter how' much more this private individual was able to benefit mankind, than mankind could be benefited if this wealth were turned over to the politicians to have them distribute it on a popularity basis to keep themselves in power. Roosevelt again tries to be popular by promising the farmers that he will put a floor under farm prices for a year or two after the war.

He does not say where he would get the money to keep up the farm prices or what lie would do with the surplus crops. Those are things he does not explain. Roosevelt has lost none of his demagoguery, since he hits been in office. To carry out plan of ceilings on prices and rationing, fair enough By WESTBROOK PEOLEK NEW YORK, Sept. It would be good for our nerves to face the fact that whenever our country gets into some terribly dangerous jam the national government grabs more power than the Constitution really allows and that the people instinctively permit this to be done for their own safety.

It would be silly to maintain that we are living under our Constitution today, or that the American form of government is still operating, and we would be in an awful fix if such were the case, because it would be impossible to fix prices or wages or censor military informaticfri out of the papers and if we were to hold out for the strict letter of controls. He realized that would blast the Constitution confetti, but he said inflation would be worse and he was willing to go along, trusting to the people to reassert themselves after the victory. What right has the national government to step into a sovereign state of the union and tell a man who has built a dwelling house for a rental income property that he must not charge more than so much rent? Why pick on him? Why not tell a newspaper published how much he may charge for advertising space or single copies sold on the streets? NOT The answer is that it right WAKE UP, AMERICA!" The Clearing House Should Japanese-Americans Be Returned to Normal Civilian Life? As debated by Norman Thomas Rex Stout Chairman, Executive Committee Celebrated Author and Chairman Post War World Council of the War Board you would he pungent, be brief, for it is with words as with sunbeams more they are condensed, the deeper they Southey. Contributors are urged to confine their articles to 300 words. THOMAS OPENS: ican citizens plus some 40,000 means only one thing: that the war will last relatives longer and we will lose more lives than if we inaturalization), are in concentra- camps behind barbed wire, followed an impersonal, higher rule, known dslNot a singje charge has been filed the American system, or free enterprise.

them. The basic authority But Roosevelt knows no higher, impersonal their evacuation from com- rules of conduct than his own changeable, arbi- muni ties in which they demon- trary will. strated admirable citizenship, was a Presidential order empowering generals commanding vast areas thus to deal with any of us. York and Texas reject his leadership. He had seen his attempted purge in many other states defeated.

He became convinced that he had been following the wrong line. It was no longer expedient to toady to the big pressure groups; the moment had come to show mastery, to get tough. That, he decided, wras what the people wanted. It is significant that he announce any administrative reforms, tho they are greatly to. acquire farms and busi needed.

He did not even emphasize the selfish Dear Editor; Here is even requests, for your clearing house every one of our rights we would to regulate any such prices, but be pretty sure to lose them all Hitler and the Japs by losing the war. We suspended some of our rights in the first German World war and got them back soon afterward. In 1933, whether or not with sufficient reason, we got afraid of ourselves, afraid we were on the point of going nuts and demolishing our own house, and were willing to place in the hands of a new and plausible but untried set of national leaders, who were comparative strangers to us, powers of government which normally were reserved to the states and other subdivisions and the people. That crisis may have been exaggerated but, anyway, it worked and we got into an easy habit of expecting Washington to mow the lawn, wind the clock and change the baby. The states became parasites on the national government and masters of the mendicant art of mooehery and even fell to preying on one another through a tangle of taxes on interstate commerce.

GREAT RESPONSIBILITY We were still in that weak frame of mind w'hen this new fright, the war, blew up and it was easy to go the rest of the way, giving the executive branch of the national government powers over us equal to its tremendous responsibility to us. If this national government should lose this war for us we would be pretty sore at all concerned, from President Roosevelt on down, but we are sensible enough to understand that in order to run the fight with the least possible interference, the government must be able to give orders in matters in which normally it would be presumptuous of the govern- 70,000 Amer- 1 United of whom owe allegiance to Japan as well as to the United are un-j September 10, 1942 doubtedly loyal citizens. Mr. Walter F. Dexter, But it would be dangerously op- State Superintendent of Public timistic to imagine that all of them Instruction, have abandoned their faith in the Sacramento, Calif, infallibility of the Mkado, which is! Dear Mr.

Dexter; not merely a product of Japanese I note from radio reports that nationalism but also of the flour- President Roosevelt is planning to You find this acquiescence even Anaheim, men wh0 are red hot anti- New Dealers. I have in mind the remarks of one of those on the ishing Shinto creed. Who is to say that they are any more reliable than the Japanese-Americans This dictatorial power of dubi-j lnT, ous constitutionality, was inspired by popular panic originating from false stories of Japanese sabotage Before Japan attacked the United States, there were Japanese Naval officers in the sampan fleet, require certain activities in our public schools. A sort of girding of our educational system to the national war-effort. Scrap metal and such articles are to be gathered, role which the pressure groups have played.

He sought lo turn the popular wrath against congress, as if congress had been responsible for the failures ot the executive departments. The truth of course is that congress has passed with altogether commendable promptness every important appropriation bill and every bill granting emergency powers which the President has requested. But congress was nevertheless chosen as the scapegoat and it was to congress that Mr. Roosevelt delivered his astonishing ultimatum. To make his case, Mr.

Roosevelt had to pervert the truth about price trends. He had to pretend that of late prices have been rising so rapidly that the nation could not tolerate a continuance of the movement after Oct. 1. In truth, the statistics compiled by the department of labor, upon which he relies, tell no such horrendous story. We would be the last to say that there is no threat of inflation, but that the threat is as immediate and as pressing as he asserts is not borne out by the figures he cited.

Rents are stable. Clothing prices are not rising appreciably. Food prices have shown a rising tendency, but the department notes that the rise from mid-June to mid-July was at a less rapid rate than in the preceding month. and butter as well as certain fresh fruits and vegetables showed their usual seasonal rise Cor.troled in Hawaii (where Japanese a Japanese subsidized priests and not in concentration camps), and teachers promoting loyalty to the nurtured by racial prejudice and ErmPf thf. schools desire to, acquire farms and busi- the plantation and Japanese nesses made prosperous by Jap- doubling as merch- anese.

As would be expected, the i "as accident that vegetable supply went down; prices jthe Japanese, with no reconnats- ivpnt iin I jsance whatever, were able to bomb Pearl Harbor with a precision that Although a guaid shot a chile jlcjicated an uncanny knowledge of escaping while playing in tie the cpSpOSjtion 0f the U.S. fleet, bushes, American concentration; Wjth Japanese farms on the camps are iree from overt cruelty, Coast so invariably located But the temporary assembly cen- that, nevertheless, the people are willing to stand for it wherever the government, charged with the duty of winning the war, decides that regulation is necessary in the interest of all. Then, having exercised this power in some fields, the government finds that some wages are out of line and that inequalities of wages are drawing workers out of certain vital industries into others. So now, whether by act of Congress or by a scheme the details of which the President has not revealed, to be given the force of compulsion by executive order, wages will be controlled, too. In normal times we would all yell slavery and Hitlerism and we would be dead right, but there you are again with your popular instinct to put the Constitution in mothballs for the duration and a bit.

JOB FREEZING Paul McNutt has frozen some mine and smelter men and some lumbermen to their jobs in the west and southwest and if this works, as it most probably will, he may be expected to do the same wherever it js necessary to keep the works going. That, too, is slavery and Hitlerism, but up to now I read a peep out of any union boss or anyone else. I doubt that anyone likes this sort of doing, except our bolos and pinkos and those administra- tionists who always did think the people needed managing, but I suppose you have noticed that those anti-administration papers which were yelling for controls and a firm labor policy have had no criticism to offer on constitutional grounds of the ideas which the President has set forth in his tw'o orations on Labor Day. You have controls and a decentralized, strictly constitutional government, too, but if you have controls Hitler stands a better chance to lick us and, licked or not, we surely would subject of the price and wage i have inflation. The News Behind The New By PAUL MALLON I WASHINGTON, Sept.

ridiculous stories get started, and come to be believed by a large number of people, is proved in the uncelebrated case of Leon fundamental military training is, Henderson and corporation to be introduced and in the higher grades the pupils are to be sdnt to the farms for assistance in farm- ters are shockingly overcrow'ded and insanitary. The permanent camps now building much better. Wages range from $12 to $20 per month. This disgrace to our democracy cannot now be cured by a return to w'hat w'as; it can be wiped out by full restoration of rights; compensation for losses, and rapid relocation of families as normal citizens of normal American communities. STOUT CHALLENGES: Mr.

Thomas speaks of stories of Japanese sabotage in Hawaii. He is wrong. The several hundred Japanese now in Territorial concentration camps did not get there by being loyal citizens. As to the powers of totalitarian dictators over us. Our treatment of Japanese-Americans in contrast to Ger- June to mid-July as a result of higher prices for account for one third of the i ian-Americans among whom there food prices rose slightly, 0.3 per cent from mid-rest of the Japanese on the Islands to oil fields and industrial establishments, it is not inconceivable that such precise destruction as occurred at Pearl Harbor could be repeated here.

THOMAS CHALLENGES: My authority for denying Japanese- American sabotage in Hawaii is the official Tolan Coift. report which cites numerous and detailed affidavits. I do not quarrel with the arrest of individual Japanese, Germans and Italians but with the wholesale internment of citizens practiced on the West Coast but not in Hawaii. Nothing Mr. Stout says, even if true, proves any dan- labor Now, with all my desire for winning this war I cannot tistics.

Mr. Henderson made a speech a few weeks back, mentioning, incidentally, that corporation profits had increased about four times but stop and question when I hear Sjnce before the war, but he made this report. First the public school, it plain he was talking about is a state responsibility. What has become of certain guarantees of rights contained in our Constitution? In spite of the bad influence of some of our neighbors across the Atlantic we are still a Federal it possible that Washington D. C.

is joining (tho perhaps unwittingly) the Axis forces in destroying our Republic and thus drive from the earth the last vestage of Democratic processes in our war-vexed world? The horribleness of the great war is already too near the lives of our impressionable children. The public press, the radio and the movies give them most damaging thrills every day and night-mares every nite. How about the physique, the mind and the soul of the generation we adults are responsible for in these days of war vio- ger comparable to the danger of giving Army Commanders the Just what is implied the nnwprc nf totalitarian Hintatnrc President that fresh milk, beverages and certain In this connection it should be remembered that much of the rise in food costs is directly attributable to the policy of buying vast quantities of surplus and placing them in storage. These are the figures which Mr. Roosevelt says justify him in threatening a coup That's what he is talking about; make no mistake about population of Hawaii and it would be just about impossible to confine them all.

it is a for a democracy to protect itself against a danger most of its citizens regard as real, the United States stands disgraced. Without a few such seems to have been far more saboteurs, illustrates the race prejudice which the Japanese Government has exploited to our hurt among Asiatic peoples. STOUT REPLIES: Hawaiian political linen is seldom washed in public, but the Tolan Committee was wrong if it reported no sab- the United States it. If the constitutional lawmaking power does not might find herself tripping down The Congressional hearings yield to the executive by Oct. 1, the executive the virtuous road that 1 a (n statehood for Hawaii prove con- says he will take mat ters in his own hands and I France in the arms of Hitler, rule by decree, the way Stalin and Hitler rule.

THOMAS REPLIES: Mr. Mr. Roosevelt thinks that is what the people, reference to France beautifully il- impatient of his fumbling, want as a corrective; lust rates argument from emotion he thinks that such a show of hull headedness and prejudice rather than logic braggadocio will recapture his wavering support, and facts. Does he not know that Let him try to usurp the constitutional powers of congress and he will find congress able and willing to protect itself and the people will be with congress, just as certainly as they were when he tried to hogtie the Supreme Court. That France indiscriminately and brutally interned all aliens including refugees who hated Hitler? That act proved her lack of morale and added to it.

The trou- is not to say that the people oppose the control jble with us is that in dealing with of farm prices and wages, but it is to say that they believe in republican government and in representative government and will not let any man with dictatorial ambitions, in war or in peace, destroy their heritage of freedom Japanese-Americans, although not with German-Americans, we have followed the French example by methods which legally jeopardize our own liberties and increase sus- Neither will they be satisfied with Mr. Roose- picion of us among the colored velt's promise, his as he calls it, to restore the Constitution after the war. Mr. Roosevelt has made a lot of solemn declarations to the American people u'ith his fingers crossed. The people will know that if he seizes the lawmaking power, whether or not his hand-picked Supreme court approves the act, he will have torn up the Constitution and overthrown the government, If terrible consequences flow from the usurpation, as they well may, the usurper will be wholly responsible.

races. Already Gen. De Witt has taken the next step and is calling up American citizens at his pleasure with a view 1o their evacuation. STOUT OPENS: It is an unfortunate fact of w'ar that to prevent the destruction of many it is often necessary to visit hardship on a few. Among the Japanese- Americans now interned in the clusively the singular lack of loy alty among the Japanese-Ameri cans in Hawaii.

Mr. Thomas seems determined to argue the merits of the Exclusion Act. That is not the point. Here and now I say the Japanese-Americans include more fifth columnists than an other comparable group in the country, and I reiterate that in interning those from the West Coast for the duration, the U.S. Government has exercised sane foresight.

Shifting Japanese and Japanese-Americans inland hardly constitutes Totalitarianism. A Bid For a Smile Mrs. suppose you carry a memento of some sort in that locket? Mrs. a lock of my hair. Mrs.

your husband is still here. Mrs. but his gone. suggestion children are to be trained in the fundamentals of military training? True what Mussolini and Hitler did some ten years ago and we were horrified at it as we read of it in our magazines. Does this imply that this is to be a 30 Years War? And, that we are to surrender to the Totalitarian regime even as we commence to fight it? I exhort, give our children a chance (which at best is all too small) to grow strong bodies, sound minds and nobility of soul they are called upon and all too tremendous problem of rehabilitation of the war-wrecked, war-broken, war- stunted generation of children in lands beyond the sea.

In writing you, Mr. Dexter, I know I am writing to a sympathetic friend, and I am giving this letter to the public press. Very respectfully, W. G. SMITH 422 Broadway Anaheim Note The following communication was delivered to The Register with the request that it be published in the Clearing House) If Mrs.

C. R. Adams, who asked certain information concerning the Orange Selective Service Board, will give the undersigned her address, the Board will be pleased to answer her questions. H. S.

HUNTING, Secretary, Local Board No. 170, Orange, Calif. before taxes. The figure, of course, is deceptive and meaningless, because taxes are by far the biggest item in reducing profits. REMARK FOOLISH Mr.

Henderson's idle remark was just as foolish as saying everyone in the East now has more gasoline, except for rationing. Nobody loves a corporation. It is a soulless economic factor, now used as a poliitcal scarecrow to inspire popular scorn, even though it is, at the same time, the basis of the capitalistic system, and thus furnishes the nation with major war taxes, workers with their means of livelihood, and supports labor unions. Economically, it is the cash register of democracy. No one here paid much atten tion when a radical newspaper picked up incidental remark and played it up Profits Up 400 Per other newspapers and magazine or not having mentioned the matter in their accounts of his speech.

Until the day following, it forgot to mention, itself, that Henderson's estimate was and therefore misleading in any arguments about taxes or social problems confronting us. CIO TAKES UP Then the CIO weekly national newspaper here picked up the idea, put it above the masthead on the front page in black type: Profits Up 400 Per Now if this were true, as CIO workers were told through their newspaper, and New York radicals had been led to believe, the CIO workers should demand a 400 per cent wage increase, and the ad ministration has deceived us all by increasing our income taxes to the extent of the present bill, instead of seizing more corporate profits. No proof that this is untrue is necessary to people who read the stock market pages, and know how much reduced dividends now are, as compared with even depression periods of the past, or to anyone who knows how Mr. Roosevelt and Mr. Morgenthau like to tax the corporations.

But how wrong it is. is clear from calculations made in the current bulletin on business by the National City Bank of New York, an authority hardly inclined toward misleading investors. It investigated earnings, before and after taxes, the first six months of this year, in 125 large corporations holding the biggest war contracts, and found the net income 36 per cent less, after taxes, than in the first six months of last year. Taxes this year will take 74 per cent of the otherwise net income of these 74 per compared with 52 per cent last year. Federal income and excess profits taxes are being increased 68 per cent from last year to this.

So the real truth behind improperly explained statement is that corporation pro fits are declining, not increasing, because of taxes. But the radicals and the may go on saying, are up 400 per encouraging workers and taxpayers to believe there is something phony being practiced on them, and that all newspapers, except their own, are to mention this per No better propaganda against our war effort has been conceived by Goebbels than by some of our own well-meaning, but thoughtless, citizens, who thus bestir unrest. FDR REJECTS IDEA The importance of Mr. revelation of his own war plans in his fireside chat apparently has been lost in the price- wage discussion. Primarily, FDR made it plain he had rejected the idea of concentration of our strength for one big show, and intended to maintain four But he clearly suggested his mind was not looking forward to decisive results on any of these four fronts anytime soon.

He suggested this in two ways, first by disclosing that only about 500,000 troops had yet been sent abroad times more men than we transported to France in the first nine months of the first World War, which was and, secondly, by saying the cost of war would be $100,000,000 the next calendar year, meaning the full year of 1943, of course. NO EARLY VICTORY He does not expect the war to be over in the next 15 months. The President likewise made plain that he did not agree withi those who have been strongly advocating and expecting, the bombing of Hitler into submission from the air. Suggestions that we could win the war that way, he rejected by saying the war will be won on the battlefields of Europe. He implied our invasion of Europe will be launched on many beachheads, possibly a dozen.

is the commander-in- chief, and therefore should know what is nepded better than anyone..